Loaf of bread

Loaf of bread : Phrases

Meaning:

Head.

Example:

Origin:

This widely used example of Cockney rhyming slang is said by Eric Partridge in his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English to be late 19th century. I can't find examples of it in print from then though - the earliest I've come across being the definition in Fraser & Gibbons' Soldier and sailor words and phrases, 1925:

The common phrase 'use your loaf' clearly derives from the rhyming slang and an example of that dates from a few years later - James Curtis's novel They drive by night, 1938:

"Bloody seconds counted in a job like this. You certainly had to use your loaf."

This was defined by Hunt & Pringle in their Service Slang, 1943:

"Use your loaf is the injunction often heard when someone is particularly slow in following orders. But this phrase, in its finer meanings, says: 'Use your common sense. Interpret orders according to the situation as you find it, and don't follow the book of words too literally.'"